The Forbidden City’s Forbidden Sites

On his always excellent talk show on WNYC radio this morning, Brian Lehrer asked his listeners: What should the Western media do about China’s sudden decision, feebly yielded to by the International Olympic Committee, to reverse its long-standing commitment to allow foreign journalists unfettered access to the Internet during the Games? (Apparently Chinese censors couldn’t figure out how to let the visiting journalists call up forbidden sites without extending the same privilege to everybody else in the country.)

Brian’s own top-of-his-head answer was that NBC and everybody else should just pack up and leave. This would be unwise, for reasons James Fallows has explained in related contexts.

Here’s a suggestion. The targeted sites, a few score in number, are mainly Chinese-language ones that discuss Tibet, Taiwanese independence, and Tiananmen Square, including the BBC’s Chinese-language news, Radio Free Asia, and several Hong Kong newspapers, plus a smattering of human-rights sites like Amnesty International’s. So the New York Times and other serious papers (e.g., the Guardian, the Washington Post, Le Monde, etc.), along with their Olympic coverage, should run a daily sidebar—maybe slugged “Banned in Beijing”—with excerpts from the day’s choicest, juiciest postings of news and opinion from the banned sites. NBC could have a similar feature on its nightly news broadcast and cable news channels.

Besides being of genuine interest to readers and viewers, this would be a measured way for the Western media to register their protest. As a bonus, it would present the Chinese authorities with a deservedly awkward choice: ban the sites of news organizations they are hosting, thus provoking some serious outrage, or swallow hard and tacitly admit that they’re vulnerable to pushback.

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